In the copending application Ser. No. 715,447, filed Mar. 25, 1985 now U.S. Pat. No. 4,612,875, incorporated herein by reference, there is disclosed apparatus for simultaneously coating the opposite sides of an elongated strip of film with an ultraviolet curable coating. The apparatus disclosed in that application, employing offset coating applicator rolls and smoothing bars, has been highly successful in applying a controlled thickness of such coating material to elongated strips of photographic film, such as 35 millimeter film. However, there exists a need for a more compact machine which is compatible with the "one hour" photographic processing techniques and apparatus in common use, for the processing of consumer films, such as strips of 35 millimeter, and 110 and 126 type films. Also, such equipment can be used with other film formats, such as 70 millimeter, 105 millimeter and for microfilm processing. Such coater apparatus must be compact, accept the film leaders commonly used in such small scale integrated photograhic film developing and printing apparatus, and must be essentially self-threading so that the film can be applied thereto and coated with minimum manual labor or delay.